Xavier Finance - Currency exchange rate API

bylla · **Posted:** Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:33 am

The exchange rate API from Xavier Finance allows you to retrieve historical exchange rates and graphs for 38 currencies. Supported currencies are so far EUR, USD, JPY, CYP, CZK, DKK, EEK, GBP, HUF, LTL, LVL, MTL, PLN, SEK, SIT, SKK, CHF, ISK, NOK, BGN, HRK, ROL, RON, RUB, TRL, TRY, AUD, CAD, CNY, HKD, IDR, KRW, MYR, NZD, PHP, SGD, THB, ZAR. For some currencies we don't have data since the start (4th of January 1999) which means that 0.0000 will be returned as exchange rate in some cases.

This API doesn't require any API key, but we ask you to be nice to our servers and not send too many requests. In case this service is abused we may have to request that users register for API keys, and we may also limit the access to this service.

Since this is a free service we require a text link to http://finance.xaviermedia.com/ if you use any graphs or data:

Code:

<a href="http://finance.xaviermedia.com/">Currency converter</a>

Graphs

To create graphs based on the data returned by this API, please consult the article Xavier Finance - Graphs based on the exchange rate API.

Accessing historical exchange rates

To access historical exchange rates in the API, you simply just send a request to the API server in the following format:

Code:

http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/api/[year]/[month]/[day].[format]

[year] = The year in 4 digits like 1999
[month] = The month in 2 digits like 01 for January
[day] = The day of the month in 2 digits like 08 for the 8th of January
[format] = Format of the response like xml for an XML file (so far XML is the only supported format)

At the moment we only have rates since 4th of January 1999, all other dates will return a 404 error (see below).

A successful query will result in the following response:

Code:

<xavierresponse responsecode="200">
  <fx_date>1999-01-08</fx_date>
  <title>Xavier Finance - Exchange rates for 1999-01-08</title>
  <link>http://finance.xaviermedia.com/</link>
  <exchange_rates>
    <basecurrency>EUR</basecurrency>
    <fx_date>1999-01-08</fx_date>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>EUR</currency_code>
   <rate>1.0</rate>
    </fx>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>USD</currency_code>
   <rate>1.165900</rate>
    </fx>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>JPY</currency_code>
   <rate>130.089996</rate>
    </fx>
  </exchange_rates>
</xavierresponse>

Exchange rates for today

To access todays exchange rates in the API, you simply just send a request to the API server in the following format:

Code:

http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/api/latest.[format]

[format] = Format of the response like xml for an XML file (so far XML is the only supported format)
Please note that you don't need to send any dates since the rates returned are the latest available in the API. The exchange rates are updated daily so you don't have to query more then once per day!

A successful query will result in the following response:

Code:

<xavierresponse responsecode="200">
  <fx_date>1999-01-08</fx_date>
  <title>Xavier Finance - Exchange rates for 1999-01-08</title>
  <link>http://finance.xaviermedia.com/</link>
  <exchange_rates>
    <basecurrency>EUR</basecurrency>
    <fx_date>1999-01-08</fx_date>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>EUR</currency_code>
   <rate>1.0</rate>
    </fx>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>USD</currency_code>
   <rate>1.165900</rate>
    </fx>
    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>JPY</currency_code>
   <rate>130.089996</rate>
    </fx>
  </exchange_rates>
</xavierresponse>

Invalid requests

In case you send an invalid request to the API server you will get a 404 Page Not Found error:

Code:

<xavierresponse responsecode="404">
  <title>Page not found - Please check the documentation for help</title>
  <link>http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/</link>
</xavierresponse>

You will also get this error message if you send dates before 4th of January 1999.

At the moment we don't require any API key to get access to our service, but if you should get a 403 Access Denied error in the future it means that we've been forced to limit the access to our service due to abuse

. In that case check out the information provided in the <link></link> tags for more information.

RBD · **Joined:** Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:22 pm **Posts:** 1

I recently tried the following:

http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/api/latest.xml

but I noticed that the rate for the British Pound (GBP) was missing.

bylla · **Posted:** Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:54 pm

Sorry for that :oops:

. Now it's included

/Andreas

ts_k · **Joined:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:52 am **Posts:** 1

Hey,

Can you change the base currency? If so how would the URL look?

Thanks

bylla · **Posted:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 4:18 pm

No, not in this version but in next we may add that feature.

/Andreas

waveking · **Joined:** Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:58 am **Posts:** 1

Can you add the rates of INR (Indian Rupee) to the list please?

bylla · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:25 pm

waveking wrote:

Can you add the rates of INR (Indian Rupee) to the list please?

To be able to do that we need to get data from somewhere and at the moment the European Central Bank (ECB) is unfortunately not trading in Indian Rupee.

/Andreas

kuzmeech · **Joined:** Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:09 am **Posts:** 1

Hello, thank you very much for this free service. Is it possible to add LVL and RUR into API response? Thank you!

bylla · **Posted:** Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:32 am

kuzmeech wrote:

Hello, thank you very much for this free service. Is it possible to add LVL and RUR into API response? Thank you!

Same as above. We're of course interested in adding all currencies, but as said abov it's not always possible.

Gerto · **Joined:** Sun May 03, 2009 5:44 pm **Posts:** 1

Hi there,

First of all, thanks a lot for the api

Second: I've been using it for a while without problems, however, the following dates don't seem to work:
http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/api/2008/12/09.xml (all zero's)
http://api.finance.xaviermedia.com/api/2008/12/16.xml (404)
+ in december 2008: 18,19,23

Any idea what this may be? This seem to be the only dates causing this :s

Thanks!

bylla · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 4:33 am

That's because we don't have any exchange rates for those dates.

jtes0111 · **Joined:** Sun May 10, 2009 11:12 pm **Posts:** 1

Excellent API thanks for that - I will have to start using on our site. In looking at the xml I noticed two slight errors though:

GBP has its basecurrency field as GBP rather than EUR:

Code:

    <fx basecurrency="GBP">
   <currency_code>GBP</currency_code>
   <rate>0.890700</rate>
    </fx>

The rate for CYP is zero:

Code:

    <fx basecurrency="EUR">
   <currency_code>CYP</currency_code>
   <rate>0.000000</rate>
    </fx>

This error occurred on both the latest and the archived data.

bylla · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2009 4:34 pm

I will look into the GBP thing.

All zeros for CPY is because we're not provided any data any more for CPY.

/Andreas

Xavier Finance - Currency exchange rate API

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